Qualitative and/or quantitative methods: All good for action research 

In a Q&A session doctoral students at De La Salle University, as part of a series of public lectures and classroom workshops, a student asks about how action research fits with her talent for quantitative and qualitative methods.  Hilary Bradbury responds with an example she’d given about the large scale, transformative impact of action research at the Port of Los Angeles. There was a lot of quantitative work behind the project, e.g., in constructing a “carbon calculator” to allow stakeholders see their data in combination and choose from scenarios for how to move toward decarbonization. Additionally there were lots of interviews and surveys in what amounted to an executive seminar over two years. The methods bring good date into the action research.  The methodology of action research provides for a social process that helped transformative collaborative action. Having individuals with different strengths come together as a team is needed. No one person can do action research! We need people from different backgrounds to work together. As (shocking fact!) most academic articles are rarely cited, ART encourages people to look inside of themselves to find the work that they want to do. From that sense of passion, or “intention” in the language of ART choicepoints for quality –  each of us gets to bring our talents – and good data! –  to contribute to positive change.